Thursday, December 6, 2012

One Bowl of Chowder Coming Right Up!

I’m
having my family over for Christmas Eve dinner, which means I have a lot of
work to do. While my dining room has improved somewhat since my Thanksgiving post, I’ve still got a ways to go. And then
there’s the general cleaning, and the shopping, and the cooking. But I’m not complaining,
because I started this family tradition more than twenty years ago, and I like
it very much.

After I got married, a pattern emerged. On Christmas day, we’d spend about thirty minutes with my Mom, about five minutes with my Dad (they’d split years earlier), and then hours and hours with my in-laws. I didn’t see my brother and his wife and kids, my aunt, or my cousins, and I hated that. Some couples negotiate this issue by trading off holidays, but I knew that Edward would never agree to not see his family on any major holiday, so a year or so into the marriage I said to Ed, "Okay, I’m inviting all of my family to the house for Christmas Eve, and Christmas day we’ll spend with your family." This arrangement has worked out pretty well ever since.

(The
one exception is December 25, 2001, which was my mother’s last Christmas before
she passed on January 14, 2002. She was sick but had been feeling better, and
as usual I was expected to spend time with Ed’s family, so I did. I was
stressed to the max, and when we got to my in-laws I was harassed rather mercilessly,
I thought, for not bringing the green bean casserole. When I tell you that for
weeks afterward I had absolutely no love for these people, I am not kidding.
Needless to say, I’ve never made that damn casserole again, either. Ever.)

Although
in general I no
longer enjoy cooking, the exception is holiday meals. I do enjoy cooking those.
And, my brother will be disappointed if I don’t make Ina Garten’s fabulous Seafood
Chowder. My feelings for Ms. Garten have cooled somewhat since that whole Make-A-Wish fiasco,
but this is darn good chowder. Edward always gets upset when my brother takes all
the leftovers home. I think it’s interesting the way Ed gets jealous of my brother—“Oh,
you won’t make this chowder just for me, but if your little brother asks you’re like ‘Sure Hank. Of course, Hank’”—but
at the same time, grow up Ed! (Christmas just brings out all kinds of latent
family tensions, doesn’t it?) I try and tell him, “This chowder is for holidays
only. It costs a fortune and is a bunch of work and what the heck would you and
I do with six quarts of stew? Our boys hate seafood,” but he won’t be mollified.

Despite
Ed’s jabs and the huge amount of time and effort I’ll be expending in the next
few weeks, I’m looking forward to seeing my family and enjoying some good food
and some even better conversation, because my family members are talkers. Politics, religion,
relationships—all that stuff “they” say you’re not supposed to discuss we gab
about with gusto. (The conversation did lag that one time we had a little
problem with the heater and unbeknown to us carbon monoxide was leaking into
the air, but other than that ...)

Author
Burton Hillis said “The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree … [is] the
presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” As the days get more
hectic and nerves become more frayed, my hope is that you have some time to
enjoy the lights, the music, and the joy of the season with your family, latent tensions and all.